Zetheros
Developer
Hey Exanimates,
This week we've been getting some content ready for the update, in particular items that are being remade and adapted to the procedural system. The aim is to make every item based on it, as it supports some itemisation mechanics, accurate weapon behaviour, realistic variation in detail and has various other advantages. The procedural item system was designed with other important goals than just randomisation. This kind of turned into a procedural items 2.0 as we included features and additions that we had planned, but not finalised when we first introduced it. Some of these changes affect apparel and armour, but mainly we are talking about weapons for now, however in future we plan to use the system for other objects that are not "equipment" too, as the variety, added realism and the ability to quickly create unique things is useful in many contexts.
One of the most important additions is new and randomised materials. When part of an item was perhaps always say steel, iron, or leather, we can now specify a range of different materials to choose from. This could for example result in a sword hilt being made from a colourful copper alloy rather than steel. This comes with selection criteria for when such materials are suitable, what we call "design parameters", which will also affect what physical designs fit a particular weapon. This means that we can for example ask the system to make a simple and functional looking sword, or a more ornate one. We can then introduce many new and more ornate designs without them ever looking mismatched or out of place.
With new materials and new applications for unique and special items, we also wanted fine control over material properties. The procedural material and randomisation systems have been extended with more parameters to control appearance, apply different finishes and guide randomisation for specific items. This includes things like polished or satin metals, matte or glossy paints, opaque or translucent coatings, different wood lacquers and so on. This will finally allow us to get some things looking exactly the way we wanted rather than having to find a compromise and is also an important part of the future dye and item customisation system.
Another very important change to procedural items is that they are no longer reliant on a seed value, but rather once generated an item is explicitly described in detail. This means we are now free to change how the factories that produce items work, add brand new components and materials without affecting items generated previously. Importantly this allows us to fully design specific items by hand, rather than relying on randomised outputs. We also added an additional layer of randomisation for smaller variation in shape and materials, so that items that are manufactured in series to be similar, designed by hand or unique can still have realistic differences between them.
Making these itemisation changes is a delicate process that requires a lot of thought and planning to make sure that they are future proof and support everything we will need. Most of this was things we knew we wanted and tried to prepare for, but weren't sure how yet and didn't feel ready commit to specifics. A lot of extra work also went into converting existing items to the updated system, so that next time you load your game you favourite weapons aren't completely different. We now need to wait for people to update their saves before we can start adding completely new designs to weapons, so we wanted to finalise the system and get the cycle going with this update.
This was perhaps a bit of a last minute shift in priorities, but we're very glad it's all done and it adds immediate value. Madoc is now back to making some final adjustments to force powers with one less problem looming over his head while the team finishes up the new and updated content.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
This week we've been getting some content ready for the update, in particular items that are being remade and adapted to the procedural system. The aim is to make every item based on it, as it supports some itemisation mechanics, accurate weapon behaviour, realistic variation in detail and has various other advantages. The procedural item system was designed with other important goals than just randomisation. This kind of turned into a procedural items 2.0 as we included features and additions that we had planned, but not finalised when we first introduced it. Some of these changes affect apparel and armour, but mainly we are talking about weapons for now, however in future we plan to use the system for other objects that are not "equipment" too, as the variety, added realism and the ability to quickly create unique things is useful in many contexts.
One of the most important additions is new and randomised materials. When part of an item was perhaps always say steel, iron, or leather, we can now specify a range of different materials to choose from. This could for example result in a sword hilt being made from a colourful copper alloy rather than steel. This comes with selection criteria for when such materials are suitable, what we call "design parameters", which will also affect what physical designs fit a particular weapon. This means that we can for example ask the system to make a simple and functional looking sword, or a more ornate one. We can then introduce many new and more ornate designs without them ever looking mismatched or out of place.
With new materials and new applications for unique and special items, we also wanted fine control over material properties. The procedural material and randomisation systems have been extended with more parameters to control appearance, apply different finishes and guide randomisation for specific items. This includes things like polished or satin metals, matte or glossy paints, opaque or translucent coatings, different wood lacquers and so on. This will finally allow us to get some things looking exactly the way we wanted rather than having to find a compromise and is also an important part of the future dye and item customisation system.
Another very important change to procedural items is that they are no longer reliant on a seed value, but rather once generated an item is explicitly described in detail. This means we are now free to change how the factories that produce items work, add brand new components and materials without affecting items generated previously. Importantly this allows us to fully design specific items by hand, rather than relying on randomised outputs. We also added an additional layer of randomisation for smaller variation in shape and materials, so that items that are manufactured in series to be similar, designed by hand or unique can still have realistic differences between them.
Making these itemisation changes is a delicate process that requires a lot of thought and planning to make sure that they are future proof and support everything we will need. Most of this was things we knew we wanted and tried to prepare for, but weren't sure how yet and didn't feel ready commit to specifics. A lot of extra work also went into converting existing items to the updated system, so that next time you load your game you favourite weapons aren't completely different. We now need to wait for people to update their saves before we can start adding completely new designs to weapons, so we wanted to finalise the system and get the cycle going with this update.
This was perhaps a bit of a last minute shift in priorities, but we're very glad it's all done and it adds immediate value. Madoc is now back to making some final adjustments to force powers with one less problem looming over his head while the team finishes up the new and updated content.
Have a great week!
-the BM team
